The lyrical content and themes of majority of Afrobeats songs causes Ghanaian international artiste and music educator Mensa Bondzie Ansah, alias M3nsa, much lamentation.
M3nsa favours the unity the name Afrobeats suggests.
The ‘Account Balance’ hitmaker spoke in an exclusive interview with Class News’ Prince Benjamin (PB) at Vibrate Space, East Legon, Accra.
“It’s good that we can give it a collective name so that we can move in numbers,” he said.
Otherwise, in various fragments, “it’s hard to be noticed in the grand scheme of things,” he added. “So the name Afrobeats, I guess it works.”
His only issue with the name of Africa’s current pop music, however, is how it could easily be confused with Afrobeat – without the ‘s’ – which, he argued, has a more serious and crucial outlook compared to Afrobeats.
“I just wished that it would be another name,” he remarked, explaining that: “Just because of its proximity to Afrobeat and how important Afrobeat is.”
To the God is Ghouled artiste, music should always be “punk, revolutionary and question the status quo.” It cannot be spent on recreation and frivolities when it has a basic or, perhaps, higher purpose of being “the wheels of progress and change.” This is where, in his view, Afrobeats falls short.
“Maybe it is that but in a different way from what I am used to,” he caveated.
Still, he maintained his desire to see Afrobeats put to a more revolutionary use as Afrobeat was because “I feel like we’re at a really interesting stage as African youth where we should be voicing a lot of things because we are privy to so much that’s going on in the world.
“We’re super smart, we know what’s going on in the world, the internet is burgeoning and it’s like there are things we can discuss and talk about.”
“Afrobeats has become like a mimicry, like a joke, in a sense, for me, in terms of lyrical content,” the renowned trans-generational artiste worried. “Some of them – the majority of it. I don’t want to sit here and be like it’s all this.”
It is not all gloom and supposed pessimism in his assessment of the phenomenon sweeping across the world.
“In that same strength,” M3nsa commented, “I also really like the pop factor of it [Afrobeats]. We’re making really international-sounding music, the greatest musicians are coming out of the continent [Africa] now, the sound sounds ready for the rest of the world, it’s on par with whatever is going on in Yankee [USA] or whatever, you know.”
“It’s kinda strange too, you know?” he gave the impression of second guessing his prior critique of the so called genre. “But, chale, we can’t just make a gimmickry out of something so important especially for what Fela [Kuti] stood for and what not.”
Hesitating and stammering a little, as though in constenation, he said: “I really don’t know anymore because right now I’m in a state where I just want to create freely without thinking about all these things, you know, because I can have that space for myself.”
Also, in some sort of self-flagellation, he said, “I should never criticise music because it’s creativity even if it’s super bad or whatever. Let them, let the young kids continue creating because when they keep doing it, they’ll find the space, where it becomes unique.
“I’m not here to knock the sound or… It’s just that what it represents is what sometimes I get stressed about.”
The latest offering from M3nsa, who is half of FOKN Bois and RedRed, is a self-titled 11-track album called Bondzie which he explained means ‘Raise your voice, and let it be heard’.
Source: classfmonline.com
